A Merry Company Playing Tric-Trac

Three men are amusing themselves with a game of tric-trac around a table in the company of two young women of questionable repute. Such merry companies enjoyed great popularity as a theme in genre painting. Soldiers in particular were notorious for this kind of morally untoward behaviour. The man seated with his back to the observer is identifiable as a soldier by his gorget. Such figures depicted from the rear were a specialty of the painter Peter Codde, as was the cool, silvery-brown of this painting.